Sharan VedBrat, PhD

President and Founder

Dr. Sharan VedBrat, formally trained as a cell biologist, has over 30 years of combined administrative and broad basic and applied biotech research expertise. She has undertaken business development, bio-technical and management operations of research activities, clinical laboratory and product development operations of federally as well as privately funded projects in the form of grants or contracts.  Dr. VedBrat technical expertise includes basic research in cell biology, carcinogenesis, retro-virology, immunology, microbiology and molecular biology. She has supervised multi-disciplinary staff, managed large-scale, multi-year national and international projects on cancer and AIDS research making significant contributions to these areas of biology.  In past years, she has been successful in securing and translating two separate SBIR grants into dedicated services offered by KTI to the greater life sciences community. She has always stayed at the cutting edge of technology and successfully procured and managed large corporate accounts.
 
Currently she has embarked upon antibiotic drug development program through repurposing of generic antibiotics. The first one is ‘EK101’ project that repurposes an old generic anti-leprosy, anti TB antibiotic Clofazimine (CFM) to tackle the national health emergency threat of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) and associated potentially fatal disease (CDAD).  In the process, she has KamTek participate in antibiotic surveillance program by repurposing antibiotic with almost non-existent record of inducing resistance to tackle indication which is primarily a result of resistance to many antibiotics.  She has continued to make significant progress in this enterprise through getting KamTek IP rights and as one of the co-inventors on the patent, the use of SBIR program and NIH program, as well as, through private funding. Taking advantage of the I-Corps program, she has established consulting expertise in each and every area of drug development ecosystem reflected in team of associates of KTI.  She is intimately involved in planning strategies to commercialize CFM for CDAD and coordinates team activities and manages different functions of KTI in most judicious manner possible staying focused on the final goal and constantly moving the projects forward.

Wolf Prensky, PhD

Director of Research and Development

Over 30 years in basic and applied research, clinical laboratory operations and product development. Dr. Prensky is a highly accomplished scientist having led successful efforts as Director of the HIV Lab at St. Clare’s Hospital in New York City and as a scientific consultant for a number of private investment firms.
 
Dr. Wolf Prensky plays a key role as KTI advisor, having pioneered the use of I125 for detecting low level RNA-DNA hybrids, applied to gene localization experiments by in situ molecular hybridization, as well as the first fingerprinting mammalian RNAs. He was pivotal in the acquisition by Enzo Biochem of Yale University’s patent for the use of the biotin/avidin system for DNA-RNA labeling. He is also a co-inventor of “DNA dendrimers,” a novel class of reagents capable of high levels of signal amplification in DNA and RNA hybridization experiments (marketed by Genisphere Inc. Hatfield, PA). As a principal of ELONA Pharmaceutical, an investment firm decided to invest in Clofazimine treatment of Clostridium difficile infections and associated disease project to undertake initial studies, help file for provisional patent, is co-inventors on the final patent and is constantly giving guidance on practical aspects of the project.

Ashok Dhawan, PhD

Vice President, Business and Technical Operations 

Dr. Ashok Dhawan has 35 years of experience in the areas of Biotechnology and Physiology. His widely respected discovery, as a part of the team at Australian National University, establishing the occurrence of “G-substances” as a new class of growth regulator, finds a place in classic text books. As a partner in National Mission projects of Government of India, his innovations lead to understanding of mechanisms of low temperature tolerance and development of PCR based markers to identify specific alleles of sucrose synthase-2 and invertase genes.  His work at the University of California Davis proposing a new mechanism for nitrate reduction has been widely acknowledged.  

He has been a Dean at the Central University of Punjab, Dean (Academic) National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, and Director (Technical) in the Haryana State Department of Science and Technology.  He has published 143 research papers and presented 75 papers at conferences around the globe, including as lead speaker at World Biotechnology Congress, Chicago. A scientist of renown, he is a Fellow of two professional bodies and has been conferred with Neol Deer Award (2008) by President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.  With his wide vision and deep understanding of research and administrative needs of R and D organizations, Dr. Dhawan leads KamTek in certain aspects of technical operations, business development and commercialization plans.

Marianne Subleski

Senior Technical Manager, Cell Biology Lab

Ms. Marianne Subleski is trained molecular biology lab tech and many years of work experience on such projects. She assists KTI to fulfill molecular biology requirements and to work on microbiome studies. She has successfully performed on fluid content of cecum samples. Her experiments concluded the same correlation as seen by ‘Quick check’ assay for C. difficile. She worked on DNA isolation part of cell line development work of Roche project. Currently, she is working with Mr. Howell to establish SOPs for library preparation part of the microbiome analyses of cecum and stool samples collected from In-vivo efficacy experiments.  Ms. Marriane Subleski is responsible for inventory of biological samples used for KTI projects and works closely with Mr. Howell for certain aspects of bio-repository management projects as well.